40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 62: Aegida

Ludvaius shook me awake some time later, holding the spear in his other hand, while Rafen was kneeling and praying a bit farther. Served him well, playing with a sacred relic.

I also made a note about the mental strain caused by long range teleports, and then shrugged. I would do it again, against such a potent threat.

Sadly, I was out of Exterminatus grade munitions, for now.

"My dear Rose. What do your tarot cards say about the Maelstrom?" I asked in my mind.

After a few seconds, she answered a bit surprised. "I should have known that was you. Back on Sotha?" she asked, just to be sure.

"Permission to target the Necron Bone Kingdom with our secret weapon?" I asked instead.

The Inquisitor remained silent for a long minute, which wasn't that good. "Proceed with caution, Trader. And no more executing Inquisitors, if possible. That guy you wasted on Shenlong had powerful backers, in the higher ranks of the Inquisition. They are not happy, even if the traitor's body and the Rosette were recovered. Other important items were missing...somehow."

"Anyway. We will need a hundred air purifiers at Sotha, and perhaps a couple more bicycles. And then...a lucky Inquisitor might find something of true value for humanity. Only she would need to visit a place called Stygies_VIII and recruit a million radical tech-priests for a permanent Expedition to the Fringe." I advised her in a soft tone. I did miss my Rose.

From the vault on Canticle, a secret Inquisitorial logbook appeared in my hand, then emerged into her own lap, even as far away as she was. A psyker staff followed a few seconds later.

"Oh...you kept them for me? That was really sweet. Jane could use this stick as she learns how to walk." Rose replied dismissively. No mention of the logbook, so it probably was important.

Well, I suppose my Blank Navigator daughter could use the gifted psyker staff just as well. Rose surely had her own devices, possibly just as potent.

"Kiss our Janice for me, and have her look into the future of Forge Mordax. I rather not evaporate the place like I had to do with Dark Forge Ghalmek, just now. The name Moredakka doesn't bode well for their chances." I asked in a slightly sterner voice.

She was an Inquisitor, so she could well deduce what a name change would imply.

"It will be done, my dear rogue. And why would this busy Inquisitor care, about those xeno-loving tech-priests from Stygies?" she wondered, this time in a cold warning tone.

"How about, a spaceship drive that doesn't use the Warp? Something rather simple to build too, almost like the ancients predicted the decay of technology and science of their descendants." I whispered in a secretive tone.

I didn't say it was of human origin, or xeno. I didn't even know what the Necron invention will look like, except in size and materials. But, I assumed it will be somewhat similar to the mechanical Gellar fields, only even more simpler in design.

My Rose smiled mentally, perhaps too used to my own fake STC templates. It made sense for her, and I wouldn't shatter her illusions.

"If such a thing exists...but then you already told me it will. That huge goal of yours, it would require Warp-less engines. So I should lead these hereteks to your domain, and let them work on this ancient drive, outside the Imperium and its regulations." Rose mused while considering my proposal.

"Exactly. But they will need to provide a few Universe-class conveyors, all filled with forges and servitors and tech-priests. I'm not that rich and powerful, you know?" I explained a bit more meekly.

"Right...you didn't kill the traitor Primarch Lorgar at Forge Shenlong either. Just a tiny mouse, with no power..." she replied in dismissal.

I grinned widely. It had been an unlikely accident.

"So you heard about that. I only shot him a few times...with the Canticle." I said in mirth.

"I shot Fulgrim with everything I had and didn't even phase him. Don't tell me you splattered a Primarch by accident." Rose complained and laughed in my mind.

I shook my head in amusement. "Oh no. I deliberately urged the Canticle to shoot all our lance batteries at the winged thing. I just didn't know who he was, until Ludvaius told me. Take care, my Rose." I concluded the mental link, then softly brushed Janice's mind. "See, my love. Daddy has the best gifts, right?"

"Dad! This staff is amazing. And I can talk to my Big Sisters now, with my mind. Are you going to make more sisters with them, like with mommy?" Janice asked in an enthusiastic tone.

I blinked and drew back, using my mind's eye to look around the warded room on their ship, filled with gorgeous if stunned Silent Sisters. Well, Rose had excellent taste in picking concubines for me. I wouldn't refuse a dozen Blank amazons, if they were willing.

"Only if they like me, Janice. But we Blanks have to stick together, so they should like me a little. Also, I have a puppy, so there's that. Girls love puppies." I answered a bit amused, and sent her an image of Canis when he was much smaller.

"Puppy!" the girl yelled in my mind, quite painfully.

I had to cut the connection, before her prodigious mental powers overwhelmed me. Perhaps a psyker daughter wasn't all joy, even when she was happy.

Then I turned my attention towards the Ghoul Stars, and located the Tomb World filled with insane Necron Flayers.

The Tyranids will not be so easily flayed, I suspect.

The Pharos complained a bit, but managed to shift the illumination beacon on that world. The entire planet shook, since this seemed to be to maximum range of the Warp lighthouse.

"What's happening, Captain!" Ludvaius asked a bit worried, looking at the shaking walls around us.

"The Inquisitor said to divert the beacon onto the next target, now that Mandragora has been devoured by the Hive fleet Kraken. The Necron world of Drazak, home to the demented Flayed_One will receive a fresh influx of meat and bones soon. I try to help them, you see?" I explained patiently.

My bodyguard just nodded and smiled grimly. Rafen was more circumspect and stared at me for along minute. "That device...it is too potent for a mere Rogue Trader to use. First, you sent a cyclonic torpedo right into the Maelstrom, enacting Exterminatus on a Dark Mechanicus Forge, with barely a headache. And now...diverting a whole Hive Fleet onto the Necrons."

I nodded wisely and held a hand to be brought back to my feet. "All true. And this is just the beginning, my friend. The Inquisitor will bring a few hundred more gifts for our enemies. Here in the Ultima Sector, I will tolerate no more Xeno empires and Traitor holdings. Or at least, nothing that would be truly dangerous to humanity."

The Veteran Blood Angel looked in my eyes and nodded. "Not so boring after all. I was right." he concluded and patted my pauldron in encouragement.

"I also know a way to resist the Black Rage, Rafen. Painful...but doable. Do you wish to attempt it?" I asked in a curious tone.

His face told everything. "It would be my honour, Lord Pef. Another magic of this device?"

Ludvaius stepped beside him, asking for the same honour wordlessly. The Black Rage was always a terminal threat in their minds, and they knew it very well.

"How? Just tell us!" Rafen demanded a bit forcefully.

"You need to return to Baal, and ask your Apothecary to entomb you in the same sarcophagus you were implanted. Then find an ancestor Brother to help you, while asking the Angel for his aid. It will work...but it will hurt a lot. Your choice." I explained with a small shrug.

Ludvaius held the spear for me, but I declined. I couldn't actually use its powers anyway.

"That spear needs a potent psyker, and I'm not. But tell Lord Dante I can always reach out and take it, if he lets it rust in some vault. Farewell, my friends." I added as the space distorted and my bodyguards vanished, to emerge on their Chapter's homeworld.

I still had about 80 Blood Angels on the Canticle, and I planned to recruit the Scythes as well. Plus my Blank sons undergoing implantation as Blood Angels on Baal would need my bodyguards to teach and keep them safe.

And that Enslaver bone will serve me much better than a relic spear, especially after Trazyn worked it into a real artifact.

Not that I planned to get into close fights with anything, but sometimes war came to you. It happened before.

The temptation to act like Trazyn and begin gathering artifacts and people to my side was powerful, but I didn't want that.

Guiding my sons and daughters into easier paths was something else. Soon enough, I had a dozen ships sailing across the stars to liberate important worlds, or support a Forge World at key moment.

Finona and her squadron was sent to acquire a mining system full of radioactive minerals, now named Radium, while Larrisa sailed towards a nearly finished Mercury_Class_Battlecruiser at Forge World Konor.

The Red Planet didn't classify Konor as Forge, which was kinda silly in my opinion.

They made warships by the dozen every year, including that long-awaited Mercury. But now, they could change focus and begin mass-producing corvettes and destroyers, and give me a slightly upgraded cruiser for a small price.

A dozen dataslates arrived in Larissa's hands, filled with nearly all my fake STC templates.

Things that other Forge worlds had, and might even claim as their patented machines, but it wouldn't matter. Konor was not a Forge World after all. They could make whatever they wanted, and had to be ignored.

Sure, they didn't have many templates right now, using only common templates to all Forge Worlds, nothing special or critical.

But 200 more sacred STC patterns, some of them unseen anywhere til now, would force Mars to change their stance and upgrade the so-called Konor Research Station to a full Forge World.

Quite worthy in exchange for a single ship, or so I hoped.

The nearby Forge Gantz will also receive a few patterns, but as they built exclusively for the Ultramarines, I didn't have much that would interest them, except Land Raider and Rhino patterns with slightly more enhanced capabilities.

After all this, I teleported back to the Canticle, and began the slow maneuvre to dock with Aegida, the burned fortress-monastery in orbit above Sotha.

I had a few harsh words to speak with the Scythes of the Emperor.

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